The moon was so bright that few stars appeared in the sky.

Moleka
walked along
the footpath, his hands in his pockets, deep in thought. He had an
appointment
with one of his innumerable girl friends, but being in an absent-
minded mood he
walked right past her hut. His thoughts so absorbed him that he
even continued
past the outskirts of the village and into the bush. A full yellow
moon rose high
into the sky. He paused at last and looked around him. Perhaps it
was only this –
the light in the sky and the quietly glittering beauty of the earth –
which matched
a portion of his body that felt like a living, pulsating sun.
Alone now, he slowly raised his hand to his heart.
How was it? Something had gone “bang!” inside his chest, and the
woman
had raised her hand to her heart at the same time. It was not like
anything he had
felt before. Dikeledi was the nearest he’d ever come to loving a
woman and yet,
even there, Dikeledi made his bloodstream boil by the way she
wore her skirts,
plainly revealing the movement of her thighs. With Dikeledi it was a
matter of
the bloodstream. And what was this? It was like finding inside
himself a gold
mine he’d not known was there before. Yet he could have sworn
that he was
totally unaware of the woman until she spoke. Something in the
tone, those soft
fluctuations of sound, the plaintive cry of one who is always faced
with the
hazards of life, had abruptly arrested his life. With Dikeledi it was
always
distractions. She was too beautiful, physically. With the woman
there were no
distractions at all. He had communicated directly with her heart. It
was that
which was a new experience and which had so unbalanced him.
He shook his head and sat on a rock.
“It’s madness,” he thought. “I hardly know her.” What were her legs
like?
He could not say. All the force of her life was directed to her eyes,
as though that
were the only living part of her. Something killed the old Moleka in
a flash and
out of one death arose, in a flash, a new Moleka. It was the first
time he had
spoken to a woman in humility, but not the first time he had felt
humbled by
some quality in another living being. He screwed up his eyes,
puzzled. Some
other person had prepared him for his encounter with the woman.
There was
something eluding him and he could not immediately remember the
other
person. There was someone like her, someone who walked into a
room and
made no impact but, when you turned around again, they owned
your whole life.
“I have come to the end of one road,” he thought, “and I am taking
another.”
He’d lived like a spendthrift millionaire. There was something about
him, or
in him, that made people walk into a room and turn their heads: “
Ah, there’s
Moleka.” He took that physical fascination and traded it all on
women. There
was always enough and some to spare. Maybe he grew
accustomed to having a
shadow next to him.
“Moleka,” the shadow would say, shyly, “I’d like you to introduce
me to soand-
so.”
Moleka would have been just on the point of making a proposal to
Miss soand-
so, but he would immediately hold out his hand.
“Of course Maru,” he’d say. “I shall arrange everything.”
They were the words of a millionaire. There were also ramifications
and
ramifications. When had he and Maru not lived in each other’s
arms and shared
everything? People said: “Oh, Moleka and Maru always fall in love
with the
same girl.” But they never knew that no experiences interrupted
the river and
permanent flow of their deep affection. It was Moleka, so involved
in this river,
who never had time to notice the strange and unpredictable
evolution of his
friend. He never knew about the gods in the heart and the gods in
the earth but
he could always see the light of their conversation in his friend’s
eyes. It was the
light that Moleka was so devoted to. He never asked whether he
might have a
light of his own or that he might be a startling personality in his
own right. His
face was always turned to what he saw as the most beautiful
person on earth.
Thus it was that thousands of people noted the dramatic impact of
Moleka, but
he would always cast his eyes across the room to see if all was
well with Maru.
It was only Maru who saw their relationship in its true light. They
were kings
of opposing kingdoms. It was Moleka’s kingdom that was
unfathomable, as
though shut behind a heavy iron door. There had been no such
door for Maru.
He dwelt everywhere. He’d mix the prosaic of everyday life with the
sudden
He dwelt everywhere. He’d mix the prosaic of everyday life with the
sudden
beauty of a shooting star. Now and then Maru would share a little
of his
kingdom with a Miss so-and-so he had acquired through Moleka.
But it never
went far because it always turned out that Miss so-and-so had no
kingdom of her
own. He used to complain to Moleka that people who had nothing
were savagely
greedy. It was like eating endlessly. Even if they ate all your food
they were still
starving. They never turned into the queens and goddesses Maru
walked with all
his days.
Throughout this time, Moleka was the only person who was his
equal. They
alone loved each other, but they were opposed because they were
kings. The
king who had insight into everything feared the king whose door
was still closed.
There was no knowing what was behind the closed door of Moleka’
s kingdom.
Maru had no key to it, but he knew of its existence because if he
touched
Moleka’s heart with some word or gesture a cloud would lift and he
would see a
rainbow of dazzling light.
The clue to Moleka and Maru lay in their relationships with women.
They
were notorious in Dilepe village for their love affairs, and the
opposing nature of
their temperaments was clearly revealed in the way they conducted
these affairs.
The result was the same: their victims exploded like bombs, for
differing
reasons. At the end of a love affair, Moleka would smile in the way
he smiled
when he made people and goats jump out of his path, outrage in
their eyes.
There was nothing Moleka did not know about the female anatomy.
It made him
arrogant and violent. There was no woman who could resist the
impact of his
permanently boiling bloodstream. But he outraged them, and
horrible sensations
were associated with the name of Moleka. Moleka and women
were like a
volcanic explosion in a dark tunnel. Moleka was the only one to
emerge, on each
occasion, unhurt, smiling. It was different with Maru. At the end of
a love affair,
a deep sorrow would fill his eyes. He often took to his bed with
some indefinable
ailment. The victims, too, displayed alarming symptoms. The
strongest fled as
though they had seen a nameless terror. The weakest went insane,
and walked
about the village muttering to themselves. Maru always fell in love
with his
women. He’d choose them with great care and patience. There was
always some
outstanding quality; a special tenderness in the smile, a beautiful
voice or
something in the eyes which suggested mystery and hidden
dreams. He
associated these things with the beauty in his own heart, only to
find that a
tender smile and a scheming mind went hand in hand, a beautiful
voice turned
into a dominating viper who confused the inner Maru, who was a
king of
heaven, with the outer Maru and his earthly position of future
paramount chief of
a tribe. They only saw the social gains that would accrue to them
and it made
a tribe. They only saw the social gains that would accrue to them
and it made
their behaviour despicable to his all-seeing eye. Someone always
died but their
deaths often turned him into an invalid. It was nothing for Maru to
be laid up for
three months on end over a love affair. Doctors said: “Take those
pills.” And
Maru said: “What for?” And doctors said: “You have T.B.”
None of the victims could ever explain the process of her
destruction, nor its
cause. Everyone took it for granted that there was something called
social
position and you had to scheme and fight for it, tooth and nail. That
is the world,
they said, as though all the evils in human nature were there by
divine order and
man need make no effort to become a god. Thus, the women whom
Maru made
love to were highly envied. People said: “Oh, and when is the
marriage to take
place?” A month or so later the girl would flee the village or
become insane. A
terror slowly built up around the name of Maru because of these
events. In their
conversations at night they discussed the impossible, that he was
the
reincarnation of Tladi, a monstrous ancestral African witch-doctor
who had been
a performer of horrific magic.
Moleka knew of all these things. They were the root cause of his
violent,
over-protective attitude towards Maru. It was a difficult situation.
On the one
hand, Maru had all the stuff that ancient kings and chiefs were
made of. People
had acclaimed those around on whom they could build all kinds of
superstitious
myths. Yet the fear and terror magicians inspired made them live
with their lives
in the balance. Who knew how many murder plots were constantly
woven
around the life of Maru? People looked to the day when he would
be their chief.
But a lot of people, and these included relatives, spent the days
counting the
nails in his coffin. He aided the counting by always taking to bed
with those
indefinable ailments. He had only five friends in a village of over
fifty thousand
people. They were Moleka, his sister Dikeledi, and three spies –
Ranko, Moseka
and Semana. Of the five, Moseka and Semana were shadows. From
Ranko,
Moleka and Dikeledi, Maru was inseparable. But it was only with
Moleka that
he shared all the secrets of his heart, because Moleka was a king
with his own
kingdom. Since no other came so close to the heart of Maru, they
invented all
kinds of rubbish and horrors. Moleka alone knew that all the
visions and vivid
imagery Maru was subjected to directed Maru’s footsteps along a
straight road –
that of eternal, deathless, gentle goodness. Moleka walked blindly
through life.
He walked blindly through all kinds of sensational love affairs. The
one great
passion of his life was his friend, Maru.
These words were forever on the lips of Moleka as he and Maru
sat together
at the sunset hour, discussing the day’s events:
at the sunset hour, discussing the day’s events:
“Nothing will ever separate us, my friend. We shall love each other,
forever.”
Maru would smile quietly. One day he had a reply for Moleka. It
was a
message from the gods who talked to him in his heart. He said to
Moleka: “One
day we will part, over a woman.”
“But that’s impossible!” Moleka exclaimed.
He said that because he had never loved a woman. When he did,
he wanted
to kill Maru. Not even as he sat alone in the moonlit bush that night
did he recall
those words of Maru’s. He screwed up his eyes, puzzled, as though
something
was eluding him. Then his mind took up the threads of his own life.
He said: “I
have come to the end of one road, and I am taking another.”
He bent his head a while longer, lost in thought, then added: “I kept
my heart
for her alone.”
It seemed the greatest achievement of his life. He felt reborn, a
new man. No,
he felt as young and innocent as a three-year-old child.